tinction between natural and positive law.
If it speaks with more respect of positive law than St. Augustine
had done, it is because Aquinas was influenced by the Aristotelian
conception of the State being itself a natural institution, owing to
man being a social animal.[2]

[Footnote 1: Abbe Calippe, _op. cit._, 1909, p. 124.]

[Footnote 2: See Carlyle, _Property in Mediaeval Theology_. Community
of goods is said to be according to natural law in the canon law,
but certain titles of acquiring private property are also said to be
natural, so that the passage does not help the discussion very much
(_Corp, Jur. Can._, Dec. 1. Dist. i. c. 7.)]

The explanation which St. Thomas gives of the necessity for property
also shows how clearly he agreed with the Fathers' teaching on natural
communism: 'Two things are competent to man in respect of external
things. One is the power to procure and dispense them, and in this
regard it is lawful for a man to possess property. Moreover, this is
necessary to human life for three reasons. First, because every man is
more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is
common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labour, and
would leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens
when there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human
affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged
with taking care of some particular thing himself, whereas there
would be confusion if everybody had to look after any one thing
indeterminately. Thirdly, because a more peaceful state is ensured to
man if each one is contented with his own. Hence it is to be observed
that quarrels more frequently occur when there is no division of the
things possessed.[1] It is quite clear from this passage that Aquinas
regarded property as something essential to the existence of society
in the natural condition of human nature--that is to say, the
condition that it had acquired at the fall. It is precisely the greed
and avarice of fallen man that renders property an indispensable
institution.

[Footnote 1: II. ii. 66, 2.]

There was another sense in which property was said to be according
to human law, in distinction to the natural law, namely, in the sense
that, whereas the general principle that men should own things might
be said to be natural, the particular proprietary rights of each
individual were determined by positive law. In other words, th